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Dissident Marxism: Past Voices for Present Times
We are witnessing the birth of a new politics -- anti-capitalist, libertarian and anti-war. But where do today's dissidents come from? Dissident Marxism argues that their roots can be found in the life and work of an earlier generation of socialist revolutionaries, including such inspiring figures as the Soviet poet Mayakovsky, the Marxist philosopher Karl Korsch, Communist historians Edward Thompson and Dona Torr, the Egyptian surrealist Georges Henein, American New Left economists Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, advocates of Third World liberation including Walter Rodney and Samir Amin, Harry Braverman, the author of Labor and Monopoly Capital, and David Widgery, the journalist of the May '68 revolts.
What these writers shared was a commitment to the values of socialism-from-below, the idea that change must be driven by the mass movements of the oppressed. In a world dominated by slump, fascism and war, they retained a commitment to total democracy.
Dissident Marxism describes the left in history. Some readers will enjoy it as a history of revolutionary socialism in the years between Stalin's rise and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Others will find here a challenging thesis -- that the most enduring of left-wing traditions, and highly relevant to the times we live in today, were located in a space between the New Left and Trotskyism. Dissident Marxism explores the lives and thinking of some of the most creative and striking members of the twentieth century left, and asks if the new anti-capitalist movement might provide an opportunity for just such another left-wing generation to emerge?
What these writers shared was a commitment to the values of socialism-from-below, the idea that change must be driven by the mass movements of the oppressed. In a world dominated by slump, fascism and war, they retained a commitment to total democracy.
Dissident Marxism describes the left in history. Some readers will enjoy it as a history of revolutionary socialism in the years between Stalin's rise and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Others will find here a challenging thesis -- that the most enduring of left-wing traditions, and highly relevant to the times we live in today, were located in a space between the New Left and Trotskyism. Dissident Marxism explores the lives and thinking of some of the most creative and striking members of the twentieth century left, and asks if the new anti-capitalist movement might provide an opportunity for just such another left-wing generation to emerge?
- GenresPolitics
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2004
About the author
David Renton
54 books18 followersDavid "Dave" Renton is a British academic historian and barrister.
He was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was the marxist historian, Dona Torr. His grandfather was the shoe designer Kurt Geiger. One uncle was an activist in Equity, the actors' trade union, while another was the Conservative MP Tim Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry. He was educated at all-boys private boarding school Eton College where he became a member of the Labour Party. He then studied history at St John's College, University of Oxford.
Renton received his PhD from the University of Sheffield for a thesis on fascism and anti-fascism in Britain after the Second World War ( The attempted revival of British Fascism: Fascism and Anti-Fascism, 1945-51 ) that was turned into the book Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s . He also became an academic historian and sociologist, teaching at universities including Nottingham Trent, Edge Hill and Rhodes University and Johannesburg University in South Africa.
Since 2009 Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London and has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, especially concerning trade union rights and the protection of free speech.
He was for twenty-two years (1991-2013) a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and he has published over twenty books on fascism, anti-fascism, and the politics of the left.
He was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was the marxist historian, Dona Torr. His grandfather was the shoe designer Kurt Geiger. One uncle was an activist in Equity, the actors' trade union, while another was the Conservative MP Tim Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry. He was educated at all-boys private boarding school Eton College where he became a member of the Labour Party. He then studied history at St John's College, University of Oxford.
Renton received his PhD from the University of Sheffield for a thesis on fascism and anti-fascism in Britain after the Second World War ( The attempted revival of British Fascism: Fascism and Anti-Fascism, 1945-51 ) that was turned into the book Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s . He also became an academic historian and sociologist, teaching at universities including Nottingham Trent, Edge Hill and Rhodes University and Johannesburg University in South Africa.
Since 2009 Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London and has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, especially concerning trade union rights and the protection of free speech.
He was for twenty-two years (1991-2013) a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and he has published over twenty books on fascism, anti-fascism, and the politics of the left.
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